Devastation - Brazil is used to forest fires during the dry season. Pictured is a view of the devastation caused by a wild fire in an area of Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park, in Alto Paraiso, Goias.

Bolsonaro is being blamed - The unprecedented surge in wildfires has occurred since Brazil's president, Jair Bolsonaro, took office in January 2019. Bolsonaro has brushed aside foreign pressure to safeguard the Amazon rain forest.

Development over conservation - Criticism is rife over Bolsonaro's environmental policies. Scientists argue that the Amazon has suffered losses at an alarming rate since he took office, with policies favoring development over conservation.

Wiping out the environment - Data released back in 2013 by INPE already suggested that destruction of the vast rain forest—the largest in the world—had spiked by more than a third over 2012, wiping out an area more than twice the size of the city of Los Angeles.

Reversing progress - The new figures confirm fears of scientists and environmental activists who warn that farming, mining, and Amazon infrastructure projects, coupled with changes to Brazil's long-standing environmental policies, are reversing progress made against deforestation.

Tipping point - An article in the Economistwarned that "South America’s natural wonder may be perilously close to the tipping-point beyond which its gradual transformation into something closer to steppe cannot be stopped or reversed, even if people lay down their axes."

Threat from loggers - A tree, which was illegally felled, lies on the floor of the Amazon rain forest in Jamanxim National Park. Illegal loggers frequently threaten, coerce, and even kill indigenous leaders and communities that protect their forests, claims the Rain Forest Foundation.

The Amazon: paradise on Earth to blazing inferno

The world's largest rain forest is seriously under threat

Brazil's Amazon rain forest has seen a record number of fires in 2019, according to new satellite data released by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). This represents an 83% increase on the same period in 2018.

Wildfires are common in the dry season in Brazil but they are also deliberately started in efforts to illegally deforest land for cattle ranching, notes the BBC. INPE said it had detected more than 74,000 fires between January and August—the highest number since records began in 2013. And according to Copernicus EU—The European Union’s Earth Observation Program— smoke from wildfires burning in the Amazon reached the Atlantic coast and São Paulo.

The new figures confirm fears of scientists and environmental activists who warn that farming, mining, and Amazon infrastructure projects, coupled with changes to Brazil's long-standing environmental policies, are reversing progress made against deforestation.

Browse the gallery for an alarming look at what's happening to the Amazon rain forest.